cool...

Gawp factor nine: engaged.

*Safety-conscious readers should be aware that I have of course been photoshopped into this picture. It is extremely dangerous to scamper right up to the terminal faces of glaciers (especially without a guide) and neither I nor the DoC would condone standing so close to them that the drips land on your face.

This morning I would have said that this was perhaps the best thing ever. However, I had to keep reminding myself over the subsequent six-hour drive that I had seen (and briefly licked) a glacier this morning; the landscape varied from temperate-rainforesty to montane to science-fiction-novel-cover-tree-strewn to (Wales*Scotland*Cumbria)² with bells on. Usually I despise driving but the surroundings are the equivalent of an analgesic to the brain. Part of the ease of driving here comes from the scarcity of other vehicles; part of the tiredness from driving anywhere else but especially in the city comes from the brain having to plot and track the trajectories of all the other vehicle-hazards on the road but when we've passed less than thirty other vehicles until we hit Wanaka six hours later it seems easy. The only slight issue was the red car driven by the people evidently not used to driving on the left/driving on only one side of the road/driving a manual/auto transmission/driving an hire car/driving who veered left and right and up and down and back and forward but who worryingly didn't seem to be taking any gawp- or coffee-breaks and so whom we had to wait behind until they pulled over three times. There was the SpaceShip driven by a nutter too but they were reasonably considerate considering their speed; probably a member of staff transporting the car from one site to another seeing as there was only one person and no stuff in it but I had thought that their only sites were in Christchurch and Auckland.

Stopped for a coffee, slice of cake and a tomato and onion (my choice) toastie in Haast at the Fantail Café which gets a recommendation for having a nice cheery bloke behind the counter who took the piss out of an American woman when she complained about the money and for serving nice tasty cheapish stuff. Although we haven't technically stayed in it yet the Te Wanaka Lodge in Wanaka is looking extremely promising so far. The town (feels like a cross between La Clusaz where I once stayed on a school trip and Cicely from Northern Exposure) looks like it has more stuff in than we'll get to see on our brief stop here but I might hopefully be able to get an haircut somewhere in the morning; I left my clippers in Ayr to save on weight but my hair is at the length where it starts to be affected by hats, sleep and evidently my sunglasses as it's showing a couple of semicircular disturbances at the moment where they were resting on my head since the sun went down.
Burp. At the risk of sounding strangely enthusiastic about the entire day then "The Cow" pizza/pasta house is although worth a poke. Nice fresh dough which seems quite rare these days.